1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a parking assist method and a parking assist apparatus.
2. Description of the Related Art
An on-board apparatus for displaying images captured by an on-board camera is known. Such a device inputs an image signal from an on-board camera, attached to the rear end of a vehicle, and outputs a peripheral image based on the image signal, together with guide lines, to a display disposed near the driver's seat.
Japanese Patent Application Publication No. JP-A-2002-373327 describes an image processing apparatus that accumulates image data input from an on-board camera during a parking operation, and processes the accumulated image data to display a bird's-eye view image of the peripheral area around the vehicle.
Japanese Patent Application Publication No. JP-A-2004-114879 discloses an apparatus which not only displays a bird's-eye view image, but also superimposes (1) a predicted route corresponding to the steering angle at the current point in time and (2) a target route into a parking space on the bird's-eye view image.
When a predicted route 71 and a vehicle image 72 are superimposed on a peripheral image 70 as shown in FIG. 22, the resulting image serves favorably as a guide for steering wheel operation or the like, but only (1) the deviation between the route that would be taken were the vehicle to reverse (or advance) at the current steering angle and (2) a target parking space 73 can be learned from the image, and it is impossible to determine a specific steering wheel operation. In other words, insufficient information relating to the driving operation to be performed during parking is provided, and therefore the driver must make repeated small adjustments of the steering angle. Also, with an apparatus that displays a target route to a parking space, such as Japanese Patent Application Publication No. JP-A-2004-114879, the user must specify a target parking space manually so that the target route from the current position to a target position can be calculated. When the parking space does not fit entirely into the camera frame, the parking space cannot be specified, and hence the target route cannot be calculated.